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The outgoing CD6005 won last year's What Hi-Fi 'Best CD Player under £500' award and quickly established itself as one of the biggest selling CD players of recent years. Many people felt that it would be physically impossible for anyone to be able to design a better silver-disc spinner for this sort of money, but that is exactly what Marantz have just done with the introduction of their new 6006. The new model is basically a fine-tuned 6005, with even more specially selected components, an improved circuit board layout, a better on-board headphone amplifier and a much more rigid chassis and all for the same price as the the outgoing 6005.

Whist these changes might be viewed as being evolutionary rather than revolutionary, they are nonetheless significant and the CD6006 is even better sounding than its illustrious predecessor. Thankfully, that improvement has been achieved without the loss of any of the attributes that made the 6005 so popular in the first place. So the 6006 still boasts exceptional build quality, mirroring the looks of Marantz's £2000 Pearl Lite series and weighing in at 6.5kg (that's over a stone in old money!). The 6006 also retains the 6005's front iPod compatible USB port, so anything connected to that input benefits from the CD player's superb on-board DAC.

Marantz have a long pedigree of producing superb budget CD players, but this new unit is far and away the best we've ever seen from the company. Put simply, you will have to spend twice the CD6006's SRP to beat it !